KHMAURI

2023

By Carmen von Arx and Jiyan Céline

Prints on Paper

Mentored by Laia Abril

Exhibited at:

Exhibited at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences
and Arts Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art
November 2023

Khmauri explores Tbilisi’s techno culture as a site where music, youth culture, and political resistance intersect. Emerging in the aftermath of the 2018 protest raves, triggered by police raids on nightclubs across the city, the project situates itself within a moment in which restricted freedom of expression became publicly contested. In response, Tbilisi’s youth occupied the steps of the Georgian parliament, confronting both conservative state structures and neo-fascist counter-protesters.

Developed through close engagement with the local community, the work moves between those who inhabit these spaces, the surrounding areas of the clubs, and scenes of everyday life. It traces how clubs function as temporary safe spaces and sites of empowerment, where younger generations can express themselves freely while negotiating the complex entanglement of police control, restrictive drug laws, queer visibility, and post-Soviet forms of repression. The project also acknowledges the role of the White Noise Movement, whose advocacy for drug law reform extended into club spaces through discussions, activist events, and political gatherings held alongside the nightlife itself.

Dance appears not as metaphor, but as a form of collective action: repetitive, embodied, and sustained over time. Through photography, Khmauri focuses on the relationship between bodies, space, and collective movement, assembling fragments that reflect the tension, instability, and energy of the moment while preserving its history for future generations.